Last Friday, the Defendant pleaded not guilty to charges that he traveled to the Dominican Republic to have sex with underage girls. The 62-year-old Defendant was now in federal court in Worcester. He faces charges including sexual exploitation of children and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. He allegedly traveled to the county to have sex with minors at least four times between February 2011 and March, 2012, When he was arrested.

He is being held without bail.

The Defendant is accused of carrying on an affair with a 14-year-old Dominican girl(hereinafter, the “Girl”) for approximately one year.

Not that this one girl was enough, mind you. Apparently, he needed two more.

According to authorities, the matter came to light when National Tourist Police in the Dominican Republic encountered the Girl at a bus stop in Bavaro-Higuey. She explained to the police that she had stolen the Defendant’s credit card and withdrew 26,000 Dominican pesos, the equivalent of $671, after they had sex. He had, after all, promised to give her 20,000 Dominican pesos to take her mother to the doctor, but that did not quite work out as arranged. He did not give her the money.

The Girl continued to tell the authorities about the year-long relationship which purportedly began in February, 2011. She explained that she had even lived with the Defendant for two days at an apartment and engaged in sexual acts with him before he returned home to Massachusetts.

Which is where he is said to live in his ex-wife’s home.

While back in the Commonwealth, the Girl claims, the Defendant continued to keep in contact with her through email and phone calls. Then, when he returned to the Dominican Republic in July, 2011, he met up with her again. That was when law enforcement says he requested that she bring other minor females with whom he could have sex. The Girl brought two of her friends and he paid them $100 each, according to the authorities. Aside from the sexual acts, he is alleged to have taken photographs of the Girl as well.

Which, of course, came back with him to the United States. This, of course, won him the additional honor of being charged with the production of child pornography.

Law enforcement in the Dominican Republic arrested the Defendant on March 4, 2012. He arrived in Miami, Florida on March 6, 2012, and was arrested by DHS’ Homeland Security Investigations. There, he was given a pretrial detention hearing pending extradition. At that hearing, the Government successfully showed that he was, indeed, the same person who was listed in the federal criminal complaint.

And so it was that the Defendant eventually made his way back to the Commonwealth. In federal custody.

If convicted, the Defendant faces up to 60 years in prison to be followed by up to lifetime supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Attorney Sam’s Take On Crimes Occurring In Other Jurisdictions

There are a number of points which are worth raising in this case.

Most of the charges here seem to have originated from alleged acts done outside the United States. This might strike you as strange. After all, as we have discussed in the past, one state in the U.S. does not bring a state prosecution for something that took place in a different state. What is different here?

That is a more lengthy discussion. However, one charge clearly did occur here in the United States. That would be possession of child pornography. While the actual production of it may have taken place in the Dominican Republic, the photographs were also possessed here. In fact, depending on what type of photos they were, they may have been re-created here (by way of being printed out or developed) here as well.

Clearly, when this story came to light, there was enough activity to bring about federal interest in the Defendant. When that happens, whatever can be charged usually is charged.

Let’s continue with this tomorrow.

Who knows…we might even ask a question nobody else might be asking. Namely, how credible is this complainant?

Some Select Cases are referred to other attorneys for principal responsibility

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